Posted
by
samzenpus
on Monday February 18, 2013 @05:47PM
from the pay-up dept.

taz346 writes "French officials said on Monday that the EU intends to sanction Google after the Internet search giant failed to respond to concerns about its privacy policy. 'At the end of a four-month delay accorded to Google to comply with the European data protection directive and to implement effectively (our) recommendations, no answer has been given,' said France's CNIL data protection agency. Google's new policy, implemented in March 2012, allows it to track users over multiple sites. Users who sign in to Google services cannot opt out. CNIL said a working group would meet next week to begin work on 'coercive actions which should be implemented before the summer' against Google."

Plus, of course, the Treaty of Maastricht was ratified by popular referendum in the countries of the EU. It was more or less popular in various countries, but it was democratically ratified. Not sure what you think it undemocratic about that.

Nobody is a citizen of a government. They're citizens of countries, or cities, or empires, or other geographically-defined legal entities which are governed by a certain body of law.

The fact that such an entity usually has a government, which may or may not be democratic, is beside the point.

In practice, the usual rule is that any government that can make its word stick is considered 'legitimate', because anyone who wants to do anything with those citizens has to acknowledge that government. Again, whether

If I call you my subject will you accept me as king? Would it be alright if others did business with me as if I were your king even if you don't accept me as such?

You've been called off and shown to be wrong, so instead you double down. And triple down. And continue to find excuses to make it appear as if you were right. People like you are responsible for every single thing that human beings do wrong. Literally every stupid or malevolent decision made by any human can be traced back to the feeling of superiority to everyone else you're demonstrating and/or a complete disregard for any evidence given to the contrary of your beliefs, which you're also demonstrating in abundance. Take a step to become a better man today, read what I have to say below and admit you're fucking wrong.

The European Union is pretty much like the United States. We're all citizens of our individual states. I'm a citizen of South Carolina, for example. The states formed an union. As a result, I'm also a citizen of the United States.

The European Union is a governing body. It has a parliament elected by its citizens through a form of proportional representation to be decided by the member states. It has a common currency. Members of different member states can move and work in any other member state...passports issued by member nations of the European Union have the words "European Union" written in the cover.

The European Union has citizens, they're properly represented, and you're an idiot.

And I'm sure that the people who voted for Mitt Romney are unhappy, but that doesn't make Obama any less the President.

Look, basic point of fact - EU citizenship exists. It was established by one international treaty and expanded by a second. It has been interpreted and acknowledged extensively by international courts, and your apparent inability to comprehend that doesn't actually change that.

Multiple citizenship is a common enough thing - plenty of people have two or three citizenships. Everyone who is

The treaty that established EU citizenship was democratically ratified by democratic vote in the countries of the EU in 1992 and 1993. It was DEMOCRATICALLY adopted according to the laws of all the countries involved.

The rejection of the European Constitution (note - NOT the EU Constitution) in 2005 by a couple of EU countries was an entirely different thing, that had nothing to do with EU citizenship, and which did not actually change the fa

You think citizenship means the right to vote in European election etc. all those things listen in that wikipedia article; I think citizenship means belonging to a state that is governed the way its people wants it to be governed. If you can't see this difference I don't know where to go with this.

Sadly, that is the level of discourse common amongst fanbois of any camp. (I refer to the post I'm replying to.)

The summary isn't much better: the article accurately says that Google wants to consolidate user data across Google's "services", into "track users over multiple sites" which is quite different and not relevant to this issue.

Personally, I get annoyed at how often I have to re-enter data across the various Google services, because the different services aren't allowed to share data. I'm not attributing altruism to Google's change, but it still seems like progress to me.

I also don't appreciate the fact that they have many, complicated privacy policies, and I really appreciate the fact that this change reduces them all to one, much simpler, policy.

Personally, I get annoyed at how often I have to re-enter data across the various Google services, because the different services aren't allowed to share data.

I understand and appreciate your point, also the one about simplified privacy policy. But for me, it's the other way around. It freaks me out when I go from one site to another and my personal info follows me. I wouldn't mind so much if there was an opt out, but apparently there isn't.

Yes, I think the lack of an opt-out is one of the issues. Practically, that would mean that Google would have two maintain two versions of their software - potentially another version for each country that rejects future changes. And their external systems, like Android, would need to be able to work with each different version. That sounds like a nightmare to me.

I tend to think of privacy in terms of companies: if Google knows something then I expect them to know it everywhere, but not sell it or leak i

Issue is that privacy laws are set based on two things:1. Cultural expectations of privacy in the region.2. Attempts at circumventing aforementioned expectations for various reasons such as profit.

Issue is that nothing like google existed when current laws were drafted. It does now and it's in a clear and direct opposition with 1. in EU. This means that privacy watchdogs will either have to find applicable laws that will be interpreted in a way that fits 1. and goes against what google does (and many laws in these areas are often drafted specifically to allow for this by executive organs without forcing legislation changes) or they will push new legislation to specifically outlaw what google is currently doing.

The conflict was pretty obvious even with old google services, but it was viewed as a tolerable one. When google unified its services, pretty much every privacy watchdog across the continent red flagged the changes and made inquiries to google as to what it intends to do to resolve this conflict. Google did the (apparently) stupid thing by going with "we're too big to care, fuck off" answer of "we're withing the scope of law". A really stupid answer when you're talking to organisations that have power to both interpret laws as well as wield heavy influence in legislative process through being specialists in their respective field that is essentially consulted and relied upon to maintain privacy rules.

I don't see a good outcome for google unless they intend to spend a lot of effort lobbying hard. Considering that I doubt stupidity being the thing behind decision here, as there are plenty of smart people at google, it's likely that google is hoping to push for paradigm shift and is going all-in.

You do realize that Google's only getting into trouble because they're the most transparent company out there? People are idiots, even those in governments.

I mean, think about it: the article even states that you HAVE TO LOG IN. If you don't... guess what? They can't track you! If I had a problem with my privacy and Google (even with an Android device)... I just wouldn't log in, and find equivalents to Google services elsewhere. That's right - even on Nexus devices, you can completely opt out of Goog

The CNIL (a French agency checking privacy issues on internet) is almost powerless: they can barely "suggest" stuff to be done, maybe, once every new moon, even on France-only related issues. They can't propose laws or impose anything on anyone. I believe google is well aware of their power and responded adequatly:-)

Not saying that nothing should be done on the issue, but it won't work at such a small scale.

Ah it looks like you're right, at least in terms of any serious sanctions. They do have the authority to impose fines, but the fine amounts look so small I assume Google just doesn't care. In fact, from what I can find, Google currently holds the record for a CNIL fine: in 2011 they were fined 100,000 Euros [www.cnil.fr] over wifi data that was recorded by Google Street View cars. They didn't bother to send any response to the inquiry that time, either.

Sounds like Google has good lawyers. "To be honest, you'll spend more defending yourself against these guys than they'll ever fine you for. Your best bet is to assign someone in AP to pay this off as close to the deadline as possible, so that you can at least save the interest. Now, on to something that's actually important..."

Google is simply being targeted as the largest. Working out this internet privacy thing is still new to them, the law makers are testing things out, checking for public approval, seeing how deep the rules need to be and how structured enforcing of the rules need to be. Even checking size of companies to which it needs to be applied. Google can dick around with arrogance and lawyers all it wants, it will most certainly get caught up in rapidly escalating fines and then start driving prison sentences to be e

This isn't just about France. The problem is that this issue has been raised across the continent. Individual organisations are fairly weak because they're built to deal with things like magazines violating privacy of individual citizens.

However when they all push together, this is bound to start biting google hard, because a pan-european effort will get both to EU parliament as well as commission. And that means new legislative packages, even more ammunition for competition commissioner and in worst case s

Especially when said corporations are not European and not government. France has no problem amassing ridiculous amounts of data (of questionable quality) to use against their own citizens, here is a list [wikipedia.org] (only available in French unfortunately).

Said differently: when your government does something that has a positive impact for you, it doesn't mean it's doing it for you. A pessimist would argue that there likely is a higher interest at stake.

Our government works for us, not the corporations who want to turn our private lives into profit.

HADOPI? It is undeniably true that France has a distinct distaste for data-hoovering American internet companies(how much out of a genuine commitment to privacy law, and how much out of an ongoing jealous spat over the surprising lack of data-hoovering French internet companies is somewhat unclear); but damn are they ever 'helpful' when it comes to protecting those culturally-vital copyright holders...

but you don't understand, peoples *have* to use google. I've seen it, if you don't use google's services, someone come at your house, put a loaded gun on the side of your head, and whisper softly in your ear "would you kindly log yourself into our services?".
Or maybe not, my memory is fuzzy on the details.

Visiting almost any site on the web means you are using Google. Google Analytics, Ads, and blogging platforms... This isn't some optional service that you can simply choose not to use, like Dropbox or MS Office.

Your argument is, practically speaking, like saying, "don't like lead pollution in the air from gasoline? just don't breath in the lead particles."

You do realize that none of the services you mention actually collect any information about you beyond what your browser delivers to every website you visit. Unless, of course, you are logged in to a Google account... Which is the point.

You do realize that none of the services you mention actually collect any information about you beyond what your browser delivers to every website you visit.

Does that change anything? All you've really said is that Google doesn't steal the information.

Unless, of course, you are logged in to a Google account... Which is the point.

It's not so binary. If Amazon knows everything I do on amazon.com (without an account, so it's mostly anonymous), Google knows everything I do all over the web. It's just not tied to my name, though I suspect there's plenty of data in there by which they could reasonably name a lot of "anonymous" users.

But then you sign in once. Why? You bought an Android phone, you want to save YouTube videos, you want to post on

There's absolutely nothing stopping me from NOT signing in to Google, or even removing the Google account from my Galaxy Nexus. I will have a fully functional phone / portable computer, and I can select Amazon as my app store, Garmin as my navigation provider, etc.

That's not true, there's plenty stopping you. What is true is that you can, with not trivial effort, completely avoid signing into Google.

And that only gets you so far. You still have to use Google as per the wishes of others, or forego the Internet altogether. Even with all the adblocking plugings, hosts file settings, and other tricks, you'll still hit Google dozens of times per hour without ever going to a Google site or service directly.

Visiting almost any site on the web means you are using Google. Google Analytics, Ads, and blogging platforms... This isn't some optional service that you can simply choose not to use, like Dropbox or MS Office.

It's pretty trivial to block *.google-analytics.com/* if you really have a problem with Analytics or their ads. People already use things like Adblock which automatically block their ads, it's really easy to add a rule to block google-analytics.com also.

No, it's not trivial at all. The people for whom it *is* trivial are themselves a trivial portion of the public at large. Government regulations aren't there to protect those that are able to fend for themselves, but for those that can't.

Can what? You can go to a Blogger site without going through Google? You can go to a site with Google ads and analytics, without Google knowing? You can send mail to someone with a Gmail address, without sending the mail to Google? You can call or text a Google Voice number without Google storing your communication?

You've just listed alternatives to Google's major products (sans Blogger, Picasa, etc., which you can't avoid without avoiding interacting with others). Google's reach is far deeper than that. An

None of these things are unreasonable. It makes navigating the internet a little less convenient, but that is what you sacrifice if you don't want to browse without having google sniffing your every move. People need to stop pretending to be helpless.

That's complete rubbish. Most people are helpless here. 99+% of people have no comprehension whatsoever about how these things work. They are helpless not solely because the task is impossible, but fundamentally because they lack the understanding necessary to help themselves.

And even with that knowledge, you can't do it all. How are you going to go to a Blogger site, view a YouTube video, view a friend's vacation photos on Picasa, etc., without Google knowing?

"Not using Google" is not enough to prevent Google from tracking you. In case you're unaware of how it works, have a look here [wikipedia.org]. If you're already aware of how it works then I guess I'm just wasting my time...

Your point was that you can always "not use Google" if you decide to. All I'm saying is that this is not true: when you browse a site that is not affiliated to Google but is using Google Analytics, which is quite common, then your data is gathered by Google. So you cannot simply "not use Google": even if you don't have a Google account and if you never use any service by Google, they still gather data about you, your browsing history, etc. By the way I don't know about the US but here in Europe I do most of

So I'm curious, what other possible sanctions can they impose on Google? Clearly they'll begin with some sort of fine, but are there other actions that they may take, and if so, what?

I'm no expert in international politics but I'll take a jab at it.... The EU is a unified market area of over 500 million 1st world consumers. Google is not going to want pass up on an opportunity to make money in a place like that. If Google want's to make money in the EU it has to either have a presence somewhere in the EU or by some other means funnel cash from customers in the EU to wherever Google's favourite tax havens are at the moment. That gives the EU a way to make life hard for Google and also a

Besides, PayPal is sufficiently optional across the entire web with very few exceptions (beyond eBay, I'm not sure of anything of note that requires PayPal).

Organizations and firms that require PayPal to conduct business with you aren't as rare as you might think. Or as rare as I used to think. This past year, I've dealt with 3. In two of those cases, I went ahead and did the deal. The third had viable non-PayPal-requiring alternatives. None were any sort of eBay (or auction) thing at all.

Besides, PayPal is sufficiently optional across the entire web with very few exceptions (beyond eBay, I'm not sure of anything of note that requires PayPal).

Try starting a online business in Europe. There's no google checkout or amazon payments, all paypal competitors seem as sketchy as paypal or worse, and the online payment solutions offered by traditional banks are an absolute joke.

Even if *all* online small business purchases went through PayPal in Europe, that's still less impact that Google has on user's daily lives. And, besides, it's not like only one service can be addressed at a time.

No one is forced to use Google. If you don't want them to do things with your data, don't give it to them.

How?

Avoiding Google owned properties eliminates a good chunk of the 'net - and not just obvious ones like google search, gmail, picasa, youtube, etc. The +1 buttons are everywhere, google-owned ads are everywhere (and not just adsense, we're talking about doubleclick, admob and other google-owned ad companies). Plus they have CDNs and other things like google-analytics.

If google were to disappear tomorrow, the internet would end up horribly broken - many websites use google analytics on every link in order to track you.

Also, don't forget about secondary tracking. Stuff like sending an email to someone who uses Google Mail (gmail or for domains, for example). In which case Google gets to violate your privacy as you didn't really agree to any privacy policy because you don't use google services nor agreed to them.

Above I defend Google in this regard, but I think your statement goes too far. People gave Google their data under one set of privacy policies, now Google wants to change those policies unilaterally. I happen to think that the changes are good for users and necessary for Google to move forward, but I think it is OK to question any unilateral change like this.

The EU isn't a free market, if Google wants to do business here (and apparently they do like some low-tax members) it has to obey EU laws. Consumer protection [wikipedia.org] is a well established form of regulation.Now you are not forced to give Google your data, even if you use their services, as it's possible to opt out from tracking. This could probably have saved Google had they bothered to actually defend themselves.

No one is forced to use anything. People voluntarily make requests to and pass information to web servers. The very act of doing so should considered consent unless there is an explicit agreement stipulating use.

Nobody is forcing Google to do business in Europe.If they are unwilling to follow the law, then don't do business there.If they are unable to follow the law, then don't do business there.

Imagine if the European brewers would start giving beer tastings to people between the age of 18 to 21 saying: hey, we don't force it up onto them and we do the same in e.g. Belgium in the supermarkets.

I wonder what would happen if Google just turned a country off. Just boom, no Google for you. No Google, no Gmail, no Youtube. I wonder if it'd make a noticeable impact on a GNP. Of course, Youtube and Google's other functionality might balance themselves out in terms of productivity gained or lost, so it might be a wash. At least, once the rioting quieted down.

The French government would love this. I'm sure that at it's root their objection to Google is that its not French. Remember that god awful Parisian municipal network that was pushed by government but no one used?

All they want is money out of Google. They can't tax the "services" that are provided, so they'll some how figure out how to extort money. I don't discount their arguments however this is France talking, not the EU, so I'd like to see what the EU bureacracy has to say about the Privacy concerns with Google services. Strange though, I don't see them going after Facebook yet... woops, they already have.

I think they are starting from the position that Google knows damn well what the EU privacy laws look like, they have now been caught AGAIN at ignoring them and they have had plenty of time to formulate *any* kind of answer ranging from apology and compliance to at least engaging in discussion on how to solve the issue. Instead, they have calmly ignored a letter sent to them in name of 27 separate countries, meanwhile collecting even more income from what in some cases i

Well Google has a big team of lawyers who probably recommended that they don't say anything at this point because the bigger EU fines would probably supersede whatever France decides to do anyway. I don't think it's thumbing their noses at the French but in general, that's usually what most legal advice entails, wait and see then argue in court later.

To be fair, companies like Google have been saying it's morally right that if they can avoid tax in countries like France that they should, and they've simply pay next to no taxes there.

The flip side of that is it means that if governments like the government of France feel it's morally right that companies do pay taxes for things like privacy intrusion, then they also have an equal right to do that.

Or in other words, perhaps if companies like Google didn't dodge taxes in the first place and paid what it wa

Well that's the crux of the matter then. Is it a revenue or a privacy thing? I think it's hypocritical and corrupt to say that you're going after somebody because of Privacy issues but you're willing to let it slide if you just pay a small amount of your revenue to have the problem overlooked.

Google just closing up shop in EU countries.. no more buildings owned or leased by Google and no more people employed by Google in the EU....there are plenty other areas of the world to direct those resources towards.

yeah, right. are they going to switch to a chinese-taiwanese sandwich arrangement? and lose all their eu revenue? google isn't a charity you know.. for google it's not what they can give to eu but what they can get from eu. they're not going to pack up and leave. but they're not going to bother writing a new policy and separating their db's if not forced - it's too much work.

This is perhaps the single most stupid thing I've read on this topic. You admit to being an avid user of Google's services, yet you object to the "price" that they offer those services for. When you go to the grocery store, if you don't like the price of milk, do you demand that the government make the store give it to you for free?

Don't want to agree to Google's terms of use? I have a perfect solution for you - use somebody else's services.

Oh, and you're on the internet. Good luck with that fantasy of keeping your data under your absolute control...

If the store where I buy my milk breaks the law, I would expect them to be punished and fined. This has nothing to do what I think of the price of their milk or if I even buy at that store.Google is breaking the law. They should get out and stop doing business even with those who are willing to do business with them until they stop breaking the law.

Even if I have a contract with them and I am completely agree with what they do with my data, they STILL are breaking the law.